Spring Cleaning for Genealogy: Finding Homes for Your "Stuff"

What should you do with your "stuff"? We talk about it a lot, but it always bears repeating, especially as many of us are doing spring cleaning. Books, magazines, photos, maps, letterheads, where do they go if you are downsizing or thinking of the future? If you have willing family members who are into genealogy, the answer is probably easy, but what if you don’t? Where does the “stuff” go? We will try to help you with that question this week.

Getting our genealogy organized and ready to be shared is a priority as we age. If we are lucky, we have family members with their arms open, ready to take what we've accumulated. But if that's not the case, here are some ideas for divesting . . .

• If what you have is of general interest to a community, you may be able to donate to an archive or library. They will often take documents and photos of buildings, events, important individuals and businesses, vintage modes of transportation, etc.
• Many repositories will take yearbooks, business materials, directories, atlases, manuscripts, and historical diaries.
• Photos that are identified can sometimes be donated to historical or genealogical societies.
• Unique artifacts like World’s Fair collectibles or souvenirs from inaugurations or coronations may be acceptable to collectors’ groups or antique shops. 
• Used book stores or societies like StLGS that maintain sales areas may take genealogy and/or history books for resale.

Hardest to dispose of and likely destined for a recycling bin:

• Unidentified photos of groups or individuals (although some people do collect works of individual photographers or images of early cars, planes, etc.)
• Magazines and journals (Some schools, hospitals, or senior centers might take current magazines or those with lots of photos. As beautiful as National Geographic and similar magazines are, they are a glut on the market.)
• Old newspapers (unless they are rare first editions; newspapers for the most part are filmed and digitized; the actual acidic papers are not of interest to most people.)
• Notebooks and folders of genealogy papers are not usually accepted by libraries, archives, or genealogical/historical societies. What is needed or wanted will vary by location, but don’t be disappointed to discover that your local facilities are fresh out of room for storing boxes of papers.
• Old genealogy software, manuals, and data disks. Anything more than a few years old really has little to no value and should just be thrown out. Modern computers and software will usually not open or run those old files.

To protect yourself and all your hard work:

• Digitize as much as possible.
• Share what you have with as many relatives as you can.
• Write! Short stories, short biographies, or a longer family history book capture your information and preserve it. Make enough copies to donate to libraries or archives in the places where your ancestors lived.
• Consider creating a website, blog, Facebook group, or other online storage area where others can benefit from your research.

In St. Louis/Missouri: 

• The St. Louis County Library is creating a digital archive and will accept yearbooks, business directories from St. Louis and St. Louis County, maps and atlases from the city and county, and Missouri newspapers, if they don’t already have them. You can see what has been digitized thus far on their website at https://slcl.recollectcms.com.
• The Missouri Historical Society’s Library and Research Center has a large collection of St. Louis-based business records, photographs, and documents. You can check with them to see if they will accept items to add to their archives. At the moment, they are specifically soliciting items of interest to four collections: Chinese American, African American, Gateway to Pride, and Stories of the Pandemic. More information on their website.
• The Missouri State Archives and the State Historical Society of Missouri both may accept original material of interest to the state. You can contact someone at the State Archives by sending a note to archref@sos.mo.gov; you can reach someone at the State Historical Society at contact@shsmo.org.

For ancestors who lived in other areas, check with local repositories and societies in areas of interest. As hard as it is to do it, it’s important to organize, discard, and find homes for your “stuff” while you still can!